Blog Archives
AGILE REGULATION — CFTC CHAIRMAN CHRIS GIANCARLO
Financial regulators all over the world are realizing that they will have to update their tools, digitize their information and, above all, speed up, to keep pace with the exponential rate of technology change in the industry they regulate. In the United States, the leading voice in this new vision has been our guest today — the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Christopher Giancarlo.
FIGHTING FINANCIAL CRIME WITH SCIENCE: GIANT OAK CEO GARY SHIFFMAN
We know that the money launderers are winning. We know that law enforcement is losing. By now, you’ve probably heard the UN’s statistics on this, that we catch less than 1% of these crimes, which add up to an estimated $1.6 trillion a year. At the heart of this problem is asymmetrical technology.
THE PROMISE OF DIGITAL ID: DAVID SHRIER OF DISTILLED IDENTITY AND MIT MEDIA LAB
There are some challenges in fintech and regtech that transcend the others — problems that have to be solved in order to “unstick” numerous other kinds of exciting innovation. Of these core enabling solutions, none is more important than digital identity.
COUNSELOR TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, CRAIG PHILLIPS
Our conversations on Barefoot Innovation always grapple with the regulatory challenges arising as technology transforms finance. Most of our guests have good ideas about this, but very few are in a position to make things happen. Today’s guest is different.
A NEW BREED OF COMMUNITY BANK: MY FUN AND FASCINATING CONVERSATION WITH NBKC
NBKC bank is a community bank that thinks and acts like a start-up company. My guests are its CEO, Brian Unruh, and Zach Pettet, who is the bank’s Fintech Strategist and who heads its Fountain City Fintech affiliate, which is the first “partnership accelerator” run by a community bank.
PRINCE MICHAEL OF LIECHTENSTEIN: IMAGINING FINANCE IN 2030
In that vein, it was a special pleasure to be invited recently to a roundtable aimed at envisioning the financial system of 2030. The event was the second in a series hosted by Prince Michael of Liechtenstein, a three day conversation with incredibly thoughtful people drawn from banks, fintech companies, cryptocurrency, global NGOs, technologists, and regulators, from all over the world.
BONUS EPISODE: FUTURIST BRETT KING
Today’s show is a bonus episode, and an extra-special one, because I sat down with my friend, the futurist and […]
TALKING CRYPTOCURRENCY WITH BRIAN BROOKS OF COINBASE
I have a real treat for you today. Brian Brooks is the Chief Legal Officer of Coinbase and is also one of the smartest and most thoughtful people anywhere in the financial world.
BONUS EPISODE: WOMEN IN FINTECH
Today is International Women’s Day, and we’re honoring it with a very special bonus episode of Barefoot Innovation, on Women in Fintech…and with Women in Fintech.
HOW TO DIGITIZE A BANK: CITIZEN’S LAMONT YOUNG
I love how technology is bringing new kinds of people into finance. Today’s guest, Lamont Young, is a great example. He started his career in the fashion industry. Today, he is at Citizens Bank, as the Head of Digital and Multi-Channel Marketing.
AI’S POTENTIAL AND PERILS FOR FINANCE: STEVE COHEN OF BASIS TECHNOLOGY
I had a fascinating conversation in Boston this winter with Steve Cohen, who is Cofounder, EVP, and COO of Basis Technology. Basis is a world-leading innovator in text analytics and the branch of artificial intelligence known as natural language processing.
CROSSING PARTY LINES WITH FINTECH FOXES JON BOUKER, DAN RENBERG AND KATE FLOCKEN OF ARENT FOX
What if, even amidst all the acrimony inflaming our politics these days, we really could all get along — at least about some things? What if, while holding true to our varied, principled views, we could communicate, civilly, across the partisan divide? What if, in fact, we could even enjoy doing that?
BONUS EPISODE: THE CFPB INNOVATION DIRECTOR PAUL WATKINS
Today’s show is a bonus episode that we added to the schedule because it has a deadline connected with it. My guest is Paul Watkins, Assistant Director of the Consumer Federal Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Director of its new Office of Innovation. And the deadline is February 11, which is the last day that the CFPB will be accepting public comment letters on its proposals for organizing a Product Sandbox and for issuing No-Action Letters on innovative products and practices.
MAKING HARD THINGS EASY AND BORING THINGS FUN WITH ACORNS CO-FOUNDER WALTER CRUTTENDEN
Walter founded Acorns with his son Jeff, the company’s CEO, and Mark Dru in 2012. Acorns offers an app that enables people to round up their purchases and channel the extra money — the “spare change” — into a choice of investment vehicles.
BIOMETRICS, BLOCKCHAINS, AND BOTS WITH DAVID BIRCH
Today’s show is a special treat because my guest is brilliant and funny and original, and he’s also a friend. Dave Birch is a London-based author, advisor and commentator on digital financial services and Global Ambassador for Consult Hyperion.
FINTECH IN CHINA AND AROUND THE WORLD: ANJU PATWARDHAN OF CREDITEASE
Our first 2019 show brings us a global perspective on fintech. My guest is Anju Patwardhan, Managing Director of the CreditEase FinTech VC Fund. Anju has an incredible background.
THE HUMAN SIDE OF TECHNOLOGY — SOPNENDU MOHANTY, CHIEF FINTECH OFFICER OF THE MONETARY AUTHORITY OF SINGAPORE
This is our second show with Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief Fintech Officer of the Monetary Authority of Singapore. We recorded it at the MAS annual fintech festival in Singapore, which is a remarkable event.
THE AMERICAN DREAMERS: EARNUP COFOUNDERS MATTHEW COOPER AND NADIM HOMSANY
One of the things I love about our Barefoot Innovation conversations — and about fintech, for that matter — is the passion you find in so many founders, these people who really believe they can do better for consumers. You hear it in the voices of many of the guests we’ve had on the show, the note of excitement, the sense that they can almost see a better future. They’re often people from the technology world who looked at some traditional, stuck feature of the financial system and said to themselves, I can do better than this. Today’s guests are wonderful examples. They are Matthew Cooper and Nadim Homsany, cofounders of EarnUp.
TRY SOMETHING NEW: LEND ACADEMY AND LENDIT FOUNDER PETER RENTON
Today’s show is coming to you from London. I’m here to speak at the LendIt Fintech Europe conference, and I’m delighted to say that my guest is the cofounder of the LendIt Fintech conference series, Peter Renton, who is also the founder of Lend Academy.
MOVING THE REGULATORY MOUNTAIN: CEO OF JWG AND FOUNDER OF REGTECH COUNCIL, PJ DI GIAMMARINO
My guest today is one of the world’s foremost thinkers on how to modernize financial regulation through technology. He is PJ Di Giammarino, CEO of JWG and founder of the global RegTech Council.
THE WORLD BANK’S HARISH NATARAJAN
My guest today is the World Bank’s Harish Natarajan, a leader of one of the most visionary and ambitious efforts underway in the financial world — to achieve complete financial inclusion.
KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER: ALLOY CRO LAURA SPIEKERMAN
One of the biggest challenges in fighting money laundering is satisfying the KYC, or Know Your Customer, rules. These regulatory requirements make sense in concept — they require financial companies to verify customers’ identities before letting them connect to the system, in order to screen out high-risk people and entities and as a foundation for meeting the legal mandate to monitor financial activity for potential crime. However, the traditional verification process has always been expensive and time-consuming. In recent years it’s also been creating new problems. My guest today has a company that is setting out to fix those. She is Laura Spiekerman, the Chief Revenue Officer of Alloy.
TALKING THROUGH THE STORM WITH JAN LYNN OWEN
I am especially thrilled about today’s guest — California DBO Commissioner Jan Owen — because this episode has been years in the making. I’ve known Jan for a long time, and as anyone who knows her will attest, she’s a breath of fresh air in the regulatory world. She’s candid, she’s outspoken, she’s thought provoking, and she’s fearless in tackling thorny issues. We’ve been looking for a good chance to sit down and talk, and we finally found one this summer.
MACHINE-READABLE REGULATION: COMPLIANCE.AI CEO KAYVAN ALIKHANI
A lot of people are working on this concept, both at regulatory agencies and at regtech firms. One leader in that effort is my guest today, Kayvan Alikhani, Co-founder and CEO of Compliance.ai. We both were speakers this year at the Comply 2018 conference in New York, and while we were there we found a chance to sit down and talk.
TRANSFORMING IDENTITY: GLOBALID CEO GREG KIDD
It’s always extra fun when we have a show where the guest talks about the days when Jack Dorsey hacked him and lived in his backyard. For today’s conversation, I’m joined by my friend Greg Kidd, Co-founder and CEO of globaliD. I’m predicting right now that this one is going to be a Barefoot Innovation fan-favorite.
CONGRESSMAN GREGORY MEEKS ON WIN-WIN FINTECH
We have such a special guest on today’s show. Gregory Meeks is the United States Congressman representing the Fifth District of New York. He is also a leading member of the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services. I was able to sit down with him, in his Capitol Hill office on one recent, hot summer day, to talk about how technology is changing consumer finance and, especially, how it can expand financial inclusion.
INNOVATION AT A SMALL BANK: RADIUS CEO MIKE BUTLER
Today’s guest is Michael Butler, CEO of Radius Bank in Boston. As with our recent show with Bob Rivers of Eastern Bank (which is also based in Boston), Mike belongs to a small, but growing, group of CEOs who are truly transforming their community banks through technology. When conversation turns to the tech future for community institutions, these two banks’ names always come up.
DATA THAT DEEPENS FINANCIAL ACCESS: EXPERIAN AND LENDUP
Today’s show brings us two fascinating guests. Alex Lintner is President of Consumer Information Services for Experian, and Sasha Orloff — who is a previous guest on Barefoot Innovation — is founder and CEO of LendUp. They recently joined forces to explore using new kinds of data to widen financial inclusion. We all sat down to discuss it at the LendIt conference this spring in San Francisco.
REGULATORY CHALLENGER: LABCFTC AND DANIEL GORFINE
In that spirit, they recruited the perfect person to lead the LabCFTC innovation project — today’s guest, Daniel Gorfine. Luckily for us, the CFTC was able to attract Dan into government from the fintech sector – I first met him when he was at OnDeck – and he’s been bringing an innovator’s mindset and working models to this venerable government agency.
REGULATION REVOLUTION: THE FINANCIAL CONDUCT AUTHORITY AND DIGITALLY-NATIVE REGULATORY DESIGN
My guests are Chris Woolard and Nick Cook of the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority. We sat down to record it on the last night of their enormous, ambitious, mold-breaking tech sprint held in London a few weeks ago. This regtech sprint, the fifth one they’ve done, focused on how to use new technology to combat financial crime. The sprints — which are hackathons — play a dual role, both sparking new ideas on specific regulatory challenges and also innovating in regulatory process, itself.
INNOVATION AND COMMUNITY BANKS: EASTERN BANK CEO BOB RIVERS
One of my goals for Barefoot Innovation is to amplify the voice of America’s community banks about the future of financial innovation and regulation. Today’s guest is perfect for this. He is Bob Rivers, CEO of Eastern Bank in Boston. At age 200, Eastern is the oldest and largest mutually-owned bank in the United States. At the same time, it is one of the most “young” and nimble community banks in adopting new technology.
THE COURAGE TO CHANGE: FORMER WELLS FARGO BSA OFFICER JIM RICHARDS
Executing this transformation will take imagination, vision, wisdom and even courage, which is why I invited today’s guest to join us. He is Jim Richards, founder of the new firm, RegTech Consulting, and I think he used the word “courage” six times, in our talk. We sat down together at this year’s LendIt conference in San Francisco, just a few days after Jim had retired from his position as the Bank Secrecy Act Officer and Global Head of Financial Crimes Risk management at Wells Fargo, a job he held for more than twelve years. He’s also an attorney and a deep expert in financial crime.
HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD: THE GATES FOUNDATION’S MICHAEL WIEGAND
My guest this week is Michael Wiegand, Director of the Financial Services for the Poor strategy at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
AFFORDABLE FINANCIAL ADVICE: NERDWALLET CEO TIM CHEN
Tim Chen is the founder and CEO of NerdWallet, and he’s a classic American story. In today’s episode, he describes the remarkable journey he’s taken so far in his still-young life, which has had dramatic ups and downs — (as he says, when one door closes, a bigger gate may open). NerdWallet, which he founded at age 26, now helps more than 100 million people every year shop for and choose financial products that meet their needs.
SPONSOR BANK: CROSS RIVER BANK’S CEO GILLES GADE
My guest today is pioneering a crucial innovation within the innovation landscape in finance — by providing banking services to fintechs through a platform-based financial services model known as the sponsor bank, or partner bank. In today’s episode, Gilles Gade tells the story of founding and building one of the leading sponsor banks, Cross River.
DIGITALLY NATIVE FINANCE: STARLING BANK CEO ANNE BODEN
Today’s episode is like a crystal ball glimpse into the future of banking, narrated by my guest, Anne Boden, the thoughtful and charismatic Founder and CEO of Starling Bank in the UK.
COLLABORATION INNOVATION: CHARLOTTE CROSSWELL AND DAN MORGAN OF INNOVATE FINANCE
I always love it when we find innovation in unexpected places, not just in the financial products and channels and regulatory issues we discuss, but also in people inventing new ways to get things done. Today’s guests talk about taking a very old kind of entity — the industry trade association — and updating it for the 21st century financial world. As often happens with innovation, the thing that’s new is actually very simple, maybe even obvious, and yet when you set it in motion, things change.
FINANCE AND THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: TIM PAWLENTY, CEO OF FINANCIAL SERVICES ROUNDTABLE
Today’s guest is a familiar name and face for everyone who follows U.S. politics. He is Tim Pawlenty, CEO of the Financial Services Roundtable. Tim was previously Governor of Minnesota and became well-known to most of us when he ran for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. He’s been a prominent voice on public policy for many years.
THE DATA ECONOMY: A LIVELY LONDON DEBATE ON FINTECH IN EUROPE AND AFRICA
This is the most fun show we’ve done in ages, or maybe ever. My friend Jean-Stephane Gourevitch offered to gather some really interesting people in London to talk about the data economy. We finally sat down last fall, during London’s Regtech Rising conference, and wow, did we talk.
THE FUTURE OF REGULATION: THE FCA’S REG-TECH LEADER, NICK COOK
Nick Cook is the head of Regtech and Advanced Analytics for the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority. The FCA’s innovation leadership is world-renowned, especially for their Project Innovate and its “regulatory sandbox,” which allows careful testing of new financial technology that could benefit consumers. Less well-known, though, is a newer initiative, launched about 16 months ago, to explore regtech.
INNOVATING IN PAYMENTS: WELLS FARGO HEAD OF PARTNERSHIPS AND INDUSTRY RELATIONS – BRADEN MORE
I could tell I was walking into an innovation lab even before I saw the space, because I could hear the ping pong game underway as I stepped off the elevator. It was great fun to be in San Francisco, on a sunny day in early fall, to talk with Braden More, Wells Fargo’s head of partnerships and industry relations — and to see their fascinating innovation facility, which includes what they call their R&D Garage.
REGULATION INNOVATION: THE FCA’S CHRISTOPHER WOOLARD
Today’s guest is Christopher Woolard, the FCA’s head of Strategy and Competition. In this episode, he tells the story of how they first realized they had to change, how they did it, and, importantly, what they’ve been learning so far. We sat down together last month during the Money 20/20 conference in Las Vegas, where we also did a fireside chat on the regulatory stage and where, for the first time, Chris shared their new report on lessons drawn from their first several cohorts of sandbox companies.
REAL LIVES: RACHEL SCHNEIDER AND THE FINANCIAL DIARIES
If you spend a lot of time in Washington, as I do, you see a lot of issues framed around statistics about people, especially medians, and averages. For instance, policies aimed at helping lower-income people typically stratify Americans into categories, in bands above and below median income, or median incomes in their census tracts. I’ve worked with programs like this for decades — HUD housing and mortgage programs, the Community Reinvestment Act, and many others.
BIG BANKS AND BIG IDEAS: CITI FINTECH’S ANDRES WOLBERG-STOK
My guest today is Andres Wolberg Stok, Global Head of Policy at Citi Fin Tech. We got to know each other this year on a panel at FinXTech in New York, and something I immediately noticed is that he has a special way of talking about innovation — a very fresh way with words. It might be because he’s lived all over the world, or because he was once a journalist — see his biography below for a sampling of his journalism adventures, which sound like plots of action/adventure movies.
THE VC PERSPECTIVE: MILES REIDY OF QED INVESTORS
This episode is a special treat because it’s both fascinating and fun. My guest is Miles Reidy, partner at QED Investors in Alexandria, Virginia. Many people know that QED was founded by former leaders of Capital One, including Cap One co-founder Nigel Morris. They have a terrific track record of investing, focused mainly especially on fintech.
A HEALTHY CREDIT CARD: JASON GROSS, CEO OF PETAL
I love having guests on the show who look at something that everyone takes for granted and said, why do we do it that way? That’s what today’s guest, Jason Gross, has done with credit cards. Jason is the CEO of Petal. He and his co-founders have designed a card that has a different business model and aims at a different market.
THE ABA’S REGULATORY COMPLIANCE CONFERENCE (PART 2)
This is a very special show because we recorded it directly from the bustling floor of the American Bankers Association’s […]
THE ABA’S REGULATORY COMPLIANCE CONFERENCE (PART 1)
This is a very special show because we recorded it directly from the bustling floor of the American Bankers Association’s […]
ACCESS FOR ALL: CIIE’S SANJAY JAIN AND THE INDIA STACK
My guest today is Sanjay Jain, Chief Innovation Officer at the Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE). Among many high-impact achievements, Sanjay helped lead creation of one of the most ambitious government infrastructure initiatives ever undertaken — the so-called India Stack that is connecting everyone in India to the financial system and mainstream commerce, by providing a biometric ID.
WE HAVE LESS TIME THAN WE THINK: SINGAPORE’S SOPNENDU MOHANTY
I met today’s guest, Sopnendu Mohanty, about 18 months ago. I moderated a panel on blockchain for last year’s MIT Fintech Conference, and Sop, who is the Chief Fintech Officer of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, was a panelist — explaining how MAS was building a regional innovation hub that included blockchain strategies. Since then I’ve seen him three more times — once at Harvard, which he visited with the visionary head of MAS, Ravi Menon; once when I spoke at MAS’s enormous conference last fall in Singapore; and last at a regulator gathering in Jakarta this year, where we recorded this short conversation.